News Briefs 25-01-2008
Posted by Greg at 03:29, 25 Jan 2008News filtered through my flu-addled brain...
- Sci-Am's Mind Matters blog discusses the 'out-of-body experience' research of Olaf Blanke. When the article says "they did not have the feelings of overt disembodiment that are typical of “full-blown” out-of-body experiences", what they of course mean is that they didn't have OBEs at all. You may remember me talking about this previously...
- Misreading the mind: is neurological reductionism obsolete?
- DNA molecules display telepathy-like ability.
- Area 51 gets a new name.
- NASA survey refutes drunk astronaut claims.
- Is our cosmos teeming with alien 'unmatter'?
- China finds 100,000-year-old skull. 1.3 billion people all found the same skull at the same time? That must have been a crowded excavation site.
- Shoes were worn at least 40,000 years ago. Triple-breasted suits...not so long ago.
- Scientists discover underwater mushroom species.
- Seawater spray cures kids' colds?
- Liver recipient takes on donor's immune system.
- Is China poised to take over from the U.S. as driver of the world's economy and innovation? Dubya thinks its all fei hua...yes, I learnt all my Mandarin from Firefly...although maybe Joss Whedon was more prescient than we've given him credit for. You can check out Firefly through Amazon US and UK.
- U.S. scientists close to creating artificial life. When they do, there had better be some mad professor quotes getting thrown around the room ("It's aliiiiiivee!"), or I'm gonna kick some butts.
- Brothers open Jedi church in Wales. Yoda in Welsh...that would be interesting to hear.
- Dwarves zipped in suitcases steal from long-distance luggage.
- What everyone should know about their own minds: six introspective insights from psychology.
- Ten intriguing questions.
Thanks Kat.
Quote of the Day:
If we knew the world only through synapses, how could we know the synapse?
Richard Powers
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Comments
2 May 2004
5 days 7 hours
Does this mean aliens are now considered our "homeys", our brothers? Peace out, yo.
Or does it mean aliens have now made themselves at home?
1 May 2004
8 hours 31 min
From The Age's article on that liver transplant patient:
'The 15-year-old liver transplant patient has defied science by being the first person in the world to take on the immune system and blood type of her donor, negating the need for anti-rejection drugs for the rest of her life. The phenomenon, which has been documented in the New England Journal of Medicine, has amazed doctors, who say they have no idea how it occurred.'
Both parents are O-, she's now O+.
12 April 2007
32 min 27 sec
I've been trying to log into the site for HOURS.
Has any of you guys had a simmilar problem? And if so, does anyone know what happened?
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
13 April 2007
1 year 33 weeks
I felt disconnected, disembodied, disfunctional, disunited - dis site was down! :-)
...
The balanced adult retains an inner child
Anthony North
12 April 2007
32 min 27 sec
As many of you might guess, I've something of an addictive personality, and having to widthstand A WHOLE DAY without my daily fix of brain fodder was almost too much for me!
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
30 April 2004
4 hours 26 min
As far as I understand it, the webserver software had a freak out while we were asleep here in Australia...perhaps something to do web-bots hammering the site I think. The man behind our server David may give more details if he drops by. Or he could just be quietly hating me for having to wake up to a broken TDG this morning.
Kind regards,
Greg
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You monkeys only think you're running things
12 April 2007
32 min 27 sec
For a moment I thought Skynet had finally taking over, and you aussies were the first target :-)
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
12 April 2007
32 min 27 sec
(...)there had better be some mad professor quotes getting thrown around the room ("It's aliiiiiivee!"), or I'm gonna kick some butts.
Either that, or Craig Venter had better take a hunchback fellow as an escort to Stockholm when he receives the Nobel prize ;-)
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
24 January 2005
7 weeks 22 hours
Ha, ha. That would be hilarious. If only 'serious' and 'important' people could have such a sense of humor - wouldn't the world be so much more interesting. And fun. And unstuffy.
tronicus
24 January 2005
7 weeks 22 hours
a really fascinating selection of news. Good Job!
"If we knew the world only through synapses, how could we know the synapse?"
Isn't that kind of like saying "if we see the world only through our eyes, how can we see eyes" ? ? ?
tronicus
30 April 2004
4 hours 26 min
"If we knew the world only through synapses, how could we know the synapse?"
Isn't that kind of like saying "if we see the world only through our eyes, how can we see eyes" ? ? ?
Hi Tronicus,
Not really. The quote is pointing out a possible flaw in reductionism, that is, distilling the emergent property of mind, into the building block of synapse....the operation of a single synapse does not show how we can be conscious of something.
Kind regards,
Greg
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You monkeys only think you're running things